


I'll Make a Crew Out of You

by ushauz



Series: KOTOR AU [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Crime, Gen, Knowledge of Kotor not really required, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24844744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ushauz/pseuds/ushauz
Summary: All Isabela ever wanted was a ship of her own and a crew of questionable loyalties who would nonetheless follow her orders and help her commit acts of space piracy.Well she's stolen a ship and got a crew, one that might be a bit too loyal. The problem is, none of them have the slightest idea how to fly a ship. Worse, they have all previously risked their lives to save hers, so she can't just ditch them on some backwater planet when none of them are looking. Her only hope is that she can somehow teach this lot how to be effective space pirates.Easier said than done.
Series: KOTOR AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1459420
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	I'll Make a Crew Out of You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wraithwisp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithwisp/gifts).



It was another morning against the glorious endless black expanse of space, and boy, Isabela was tired.

Sure, she survived. That’s what she did. She was a survivor. No matter what happened, she’d always end up on her feet, even if she had to prop herself up on a dead body first.

But this wasn’t surviving some danger. No, this had to do the crew she hired. She’d needed a crew to fly a spaceship, and she’d picked each one out. Except, of course, for Aveline who had just showed up and refused to leave.

The problem was her crew, the crew she was giving a fair cut of each take to, had no good spacefaring skills. None!

No one knew how to fly a ship. No one knew how to fix a ship. None of them had the faintest idea what to about any of it. While they were good at killing people, this made for a terrible crew, and normally, she’d write off her losses. Ditch them all on some planet and pick up some proper folk instead.

The problem was they rescued her from certain death, and now she owed them. Except they were under some impression that they owed her and would give her lost puppy expressions whenever she was near and _lingered._

Except for, of course, Aveline. It was almost enough to make her like the wookiee.

—

The first step was to teach someone other than her how to fly the ship. As such, she ordered a rotating shift of copilots, so she could teach as she went. Making so she didn’t have to be awake all the time for the ship to be moving was a key step one, and if anyone showed any aptitude, or at least sucked less than the others, those would be the ones to train in piloting skills.

Of course, each of them end up having their own unique ways of being terrible at flying.

Merrill got distracted easily and had difficulties paying attention to the various readings. You didn’t just look outside the big window; you needed to pay close attention to the many readings since space came in all three dimensions, and things can and would collide with the ship in every way possible.

Aveline seemed the most competent, but guess what, the ship controls were not made for wookiee paws. And ‘things not made for wookiee paws’ seemed to be a source of frustration for Aveline, and there was no need to aggravate a wookiee anymore than needed.

Isabela also didn’t need to understand Shyriiwook to know that Aveline mocked her. A lot. Especially while Isabela was trying to teach Ms. Goodypaws the finer points of doing crime, but if she didn’t like it, then she could _leave_ at any time.

Aveline continued to remain.

Anders had terrible fine motor control skills, which confused her. She distinctly remembered him being quite talented in the nimble fingers department, not suffering from occasional shudders and twitches.

“Nerve damage?” she had asked, and he hadn’t answered, mostly just looked at her with that tired expression he had all the time now.

He would jerk the controls about and would miss which button he was hitting and then look confused that he had done so. Which was deeply concerning, but he was not yet banned from the cockpit. Maybe, she tried to justify to herself, it would help rebuild those skills he somehow lost. At the very least, he had no issues paying attention to all the screens and readings, so she had hopes for him regardless.

Dorian simply looked at everything like it was brand new to him even when she had Fenris on hand to translate. Which sucked because she was really hoping he wasn’t some failure of a Mandalorian, but then that was probably on her for assuming All Mandalorians knew how to fly ships. And with his linguistic barrier, he’d probably spent most of his life on some remote planet.

It would explain why Dorian struggled a lot with the technology at hand.

Meanwhile it only took one session with Fenris for him to be banned from the cockpit for life. Never again.

Isabela once again considered just dumping them all off on some station and finding a new crew, especially since she couldn’t afford any new hypothetical person who actually knew the finer points of spaceships if she kept them on. Jobs were tight enough as is, and every new person on a spaceship was an additional drain on food, life support, and fuel.

Maybe she could just dump _one_ of them? Just one.

Dorian had initially been willing to leave the ship, but people were after Dorian, and- it wasn’t that she didn’t feel comfortable leaving someone who didn’t understand the local language behind while being pursued. No that wasn’t it. She felt Dorian was a decent investment because he had those martial Mandalorian skills. He was a good fighter, and every pirate crew had a few members who were more martial than anything else.

Anders was an old friend, but more importantly, a medic. When the universe hands out free medics who double as ex-Jedi, you don’t throw them away.

Merrill meanwhile was one of the best grifters Isabela had ever seen, presumably with little official training as one, and Fenris was also an amazing fighter who could also ghost through walls. That was a useful talent!

Which left Aveline. Who was so far the best of the shitty copilots which she couldn’t do without, the most competent out of these assholes when it came to actual ship-related skills.

So she was stuck with getting rid of no one.

Maybe she just needed to think of this as a long term investment, she mused.

‘Long term investment’ sounds like how you get all your credits stolen and end up pantless in Coruscant.

—

“There’s more jobs on a spaceship than just flying,” Isabela said to the gathered crew. “There’s a need for someone specialized in communications, in long term navigation, mechanics, computers, and a quartermaster. Even without the need of specialization, everyone will at the very least help cook and clean. The filth has nowhere to go but remain right here with us, and that odor will build up.”

Fenris was translating for Dorian with less reluctance than Isabela would have thought considering how close those two came to killing each other at first.

“I was technically trained in diplomacy,” Anders offered.

Isabela stared at him. “Sweetie, you are one of the least diplomatic people here.”

“Yeah, because I’m not trying to be diplomatic,” Anders said. “I can if it’s my job.”

“We will give that a try,” Isabela said, because she _could_ be diplomatic unlike Anders. “Merrill, considering your natural talents”—Anders looked displeased at the mention of Merrill’s grifting abilities—”you will also be working with Anders. You can fetch me for any calls that come in, so I can see how you two do.”

“Okay that I can do, but uh, you just said everyone has to cook?” Merrill asked with the widest eyes. “What if, hypothetically, someone has no idea how to cook and has never done that before.”

Isabela resisted the urge to put her face into her hands because that was not a good captain look. “Okay who here can actually cook food?”

Nobody moved except for Anders who gave a half-hearted waggle of a hand.

“Does anyone actually know how to use cleaning supplies?”

Anders raised his hand, and after a brief though terse talk in their native tongue, Fenris said, “Dorian knows how to clean up after dead bodies.”

“You know what, that’s something,” Isabela said. “I’ll take that for now. But guess what. That’s not going to be good enough for the future. We are going to have a shift on meal preparation and ship cleaning, and everyone will take a turn, and this is not something optional to learn.”

At least no one looked upset by the news. Instead they all looked eager to learn. That should have helped ease the pain, but it didn’t. It really didn’t.

—

Isabela had no idea how to teach someone to be a mechanic or a computer expert. She knew the basics of the craft, of course, but not the finer workings nor, more important, where to start with teaching such things.

Thankfully, she didn’t need to. All she needed was to get the ship to a nice port city on some planet where they could pick up supplies as well as holo teaching programs.

And by ‘pick up’, Isabela mostly meant steal, because they weren’t made of credits, and they were low on everything.

The ship was barely furnished. There was a helm, a room hosting the computers and electronics, a captain’s room, the engine room, the life support room (also with escape pods), storage, a small infirmary, the crew’s quarters, the gun turret, two tiny bathrooms (neither of which had a shower), and a decent sized kitchen/den/living area. While it was not cramped by spaceship standards, it was likely cramped by the standards of people who didn’t spend their lives primarily on a spaceship.

So far nobody had killed each other, sharing a space in the crews’ quarters. Isabela knew it was an adjustment for some people, used to having their own separate living space, so at least that seemed to be going well.

They were all sitting down together for dinner, which was certainly food that could be ingested. Or rather, she was able to get everyone to sit down. She wasn’t able to get everyone to eat.

And not just Dorian because he wouldn’t take off his fucking helmet. Aveline had tried the ‘food’ and promptly pushed the plate away.

Aveline grumbled something in a deep enough tone Isabela could feel the vibrations in her lekku.

“She says it tastes like bantha shit,” Anders said.

Aveline glared at Anders who rolled his eyes. “If Fenris is allowed to make everything Dorian says sound sarcastic, then I’m allowed to put my own interpretive spin on things.”

“Dorian _is_ sarcastic,” Fenris said. “Everything he says is coated with sarcasm.”

Dorian looked over at the sound of his name but didn’t say anything. He didn’t talk as much (to Fenris) during meal times because it helped him vanish when no one was looking.

Anders had expressed his medical concerns about Dorian’s food intake but a) Dorian was a grown ass adult and b) Dorian’s food would _also_ disappear with him. Maybe Mandalorians were just finicky on how they took their helmet off for. Eccentricities were often overlooked in pirate crews. Eccentricities were definitely overlooked in professional mercenaries, which is what a number of the Mandalorians had become after Revan.

“What she said,” Fenris said, pointing at Anders, “was the food was too bland for her.”

“You said you didn’t speak Shyriiwook,” Isabela said to Fenris.

“I didn’t. I’ve been learning since I joined your crew,” he said.

“Oh, do you have some translation guide you’ve been learning from?” Isabela asked.

Fenris shook his head. “That would be useful, but no.”

Huh. That seemed almost implausible to just learn from listening in alone, but maybe Fenris was some sort of natural linguist. Well, Isabela wasn’t one to look a gift fathier in the mouth.

“It’s hard to make anything taste good with base nutritional blocks,” Isabela said. “Now we can’t afford spices, but we are pirates. Granted, I don’t want to get permanently banned from our next stop, so we are going to politely steal from them. As in, Merrill, I want you to use your Force powers to convince some spice sellers to give us some spice.” Isabela paused. “Actual spice and herbs, that is. Not drugs.”

“Okay!” Merrill said brightly. “I think that should be easy. I’m very good at getting things from people.”

Anders opened his mouth, thought for a moment, and then closed it.

“We are pirates,” Isabela reminded Anders with a look. Anders who once used the Force to convince jewelry sellers to give him a ‘discount’ on earrings. “If you have skills, like the Force, I will be asking you to do a number of unethical things with them.”

“I understand that,” Anders said lightly and then he stabbed at his food hard enough that Isabela expected him to look angry, at least even briefly. But he didn’t. Mostly he seemed a little unfocused, and then Isabela noticed he had stabbed just _past_ his food. Which he did again, and then a third time.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Hm?” Anders asked.

Dorian said something in that strange language to Fenris, and Fenris gave a single half-snort.

It was hard not to be worried about Anders. Something had to have happened to him, but asking him in front of people wouldn’t do.

“This would also be the time to stock up on anything you need or want,” Isabela said. “You can’t sleep without another blanket? Get one. Tired of only wearing one change of clothing? This is it. We will want to keep heavier personal items to a minimum, but I’m not going to stop you from investing in a holo-tv or some board games. If that’s what you need to not murder each other out of boredom, then so be it. But keep in mind the essentials first.”

“Good, then Anders can finally stop stealing my pillow,” Fenris said.

“It’s everyone’s pillow,” Anders said, rolling his eyes. “We sleep in a communal area.”

Ah. Here it was.

“It is on _my_ designated bed,” Fenris said, eyes narrowing. “Not yours. You already have a pillow and don’t need to steal mine. You will keep your hands to yourself.”

“Riiiiight yes I remember now,” Merrill said.

“You say that but you keep forgetting,” Fenris complained.

Aveline groaned.

“There should be no need! Every bed is exactly the same!” Anders said. “There’s no need for someone to have a specific bed, especially since some of us are on different sleeping schedules. I for one would love to find out what Dorian’s is, as I still have yet to see him sleep.”

“You know what,” Isabela said. “You can write your own name on your bed. If it has a name on it that isn’t yours, you don’t get to sleep there.”

“That sounds mostly reasonable,” Fenris said.

“Mostly?”

“I still can’t read,” Fenris pointed out.

Isabela resisted the urge to hit her head against a wall.

“We’ll think of something,” Isabela said, feeling very tired and determined not to show it. “And I doubt Dorian knows how to read Basic either so-”

She glanced over to where Dorian had been sitting. He was, of course, gone along with his plate of food. “Well that didn’t take long.”

Fenris said something under his breath in a language Isabela didn’t understand.

“Well. Aveline, you are on piloting shift with me again, so if you won’t eat that, let’s head to the helm.”

—

Isabela had planned on just slipping the dockmaster something a bit extra to overlook the lack of proper registration, but Merrill’s charm won the dockmaster over, and she let them skirt on by.

Before they went shopping, she addressed a very crucial topic: laundry and showering. Most docks had laundromats you could pay to use as well as pay-for showers. Normally for longer trips, most people used sponge baths to keep clean.

Everyone was directed to the showers and to dump any dirty spare clothes they had to the laundromat. They then split into two teams: Anders, Isabela, and Merrill who would be relying upon grifting and paying when absolutely necessary, and then Dorian, Fenris, and Aveline who would be relying upon creating distractions and drawing attention away from Fenris who would be stealing through his ghosting powers.

Very few things were more distracting than a loud wookiee.

Aveline had handed Isabela a list of flavoring spices, and Isabela’s brow ridges had shot up. The ones requested were considered barely edible, usually because the spices would start literally burning the insides of mouths. But then Aveline wasn’t a twi’lek, so maybe wookiees were on the high end of tolerance for such things.

Cathar also required a near exclusively protein based diet, which Isabela could survive off of if need be, but some variety wouldn’t hurt for everyone else. Or so she assumed. Dorian had never removed his helmet, so Isabela still didn’t know what species he was. Human was a good bet as a large number of Mandalorians were human, but Mandalorians also took in many species.

Maybe while she was scrounging for supplies she could find some kind of cultural guide for Mandalorians, see if it was rude to ask a Mandalorian to remove their helmet.

Merrill, was once again, a complete natural. She was in literal tears walking through the isles of flavoring spice, and then within seconds had the store owner, a stout ithorian, wrapped around her dainty claws because she just missed tasting things so much, having been in exile for so long and surviving off so little.

The holo vid education person was not as easily swayed.

“I’m just trying to pick up more skills so I can be employable, you know,” Merrill was saying. “A lot of the skills I know don’t work outside of the homeworld, and I’ve gotten so lost.”

“I understand that. I’ve got sympathy,” the education lady said. “But I’ve also got to make a profit, and these don’t come cheap.”

Still. Her attention was completely transfixed on Merrill.

“Look, if you are planning on staying in the area for a while, I can find work for you to do,” she said. “I’ll pay you, and then you can earn some of these programs you are looking into.”

“Oh really?” Merrill asked. Her gaze didn’t even flicker to Isabela, now slipping a couple of the vids into her purse after disabling the mini-alarms on each package. Mechanics, Electronics, Cooking for Dummies, what else could she find? “Oh thank you that’s so very generous of you. How long do you think it will take for me to earn enough credits for a basic program?”

Merrill kept her engaged, shifting the conversation when need be, and even getting the lady happily talking about her plans for the future as Isabela discreetly rifled through everything. Anders wasn’t helping, but he wasn’t unhelping either, so Isabela would take what she could get. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find any language programs on Shryiiwook or Mando’a. Damn. Well, she didn’t want to linger too long, so she left the store with a disinterested affect and waited, and Anders showed up shortly after.

“They are seriously overcharging for the price of some of those programs,” Anders said to her.

“Always helps to have a discount,” Isabela said while waggling her fingers, and Anders snorted in good humor.

Fifteen minutes later, Merrill walked out of the store, cheerfully waving to the storeowner, before mingling into the crowd where the two of them were waiting. She had a happy spring in her step, and her eyes were bright.

“Easy, right?” Isabela said, patting Merrill on the shoulder. Merrill made that cute ‘mrrrp’ noise and blinked slowly at her. Once again, Isabela felt that tugging, amplifying how pleased Isabela felt.

Which distantly made Isabela feel sad, if Merrill felt she had to use the Force to make people proud of her doing a job well done. And also made it a shame because Isabela had been about to praise Merrill, but she wanted to praise Merrill on her own terms.

She’d find an excuse the next time Merrill did something good and didn’t try tugging at her emotions.

“This is so exciting!” Merrill said but in a hushed tone.

“Don’t give it away sweet thing,” Isabela said. “Just act casual. Now. We’ve got personal items next-”

“Oh do you think we could look for something unnecessary?” Merrill asked. “I forgot to ask earlier, sorry, but I had gotten thinking about the mission and just so wrapped up and it completely slipped my mind.”

“Of course. I mean if it’s personal, that counts as a personal item,” Isabela said.

“Do you think they sell anything that came from the cathar homeworld?” Merrill asked hopefully. “Or have cathar shopowners I could talk to? I’m still trying to collect whatever I can from my homeworld. I just get so worried when we get back we won’t remember who we used to be, you know?”

Interestingly enough, there wasn’t any tugging this time.

Anders shrugged. “I’m not sure they’ll have much of cathar culture here. It’s not the largest shopping area, and cathar aren’t a numerous species.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Merrill said in a breezy tone. “You never know what kind of cultural artifacts you might find. We might find something about human culture here. That would make sense, right, since humans are so numerous I’m sure we could find out about the one singular human culture.”

“We could if you wanted, though that store probably was the best place to pick up information on such a thing,” Anders said, the sarcasm emanating from Merrill apparently flying right over his head.

“We can take a look around,” Isabela told Merrill who blinked slowly at her again.

They spent the next hour checking stores as well as manifests and putting in queries into the planetary network. They didn’t find anything, neither cathar relics nor cathar shopowners, though it wasn’t uncommon for many shops to not be registered into the local planetary network especially on the seedier planets. This didn’t seem to discourage Merrill though.

“I just like to check every time, just in case,” she said. “You never know what you might find if you look. I might find things from my own culture, though I’m happy finding anything from any cathar culture. I’m hoping to collect as much data as possible on us, record all this history and knowledge before it’s lost to time.”

“What cathar culture do you come from?” Isabela asked.

“The Dalish,” Merrill said. “We were wanderers in the north-eastern continent. We traveled between the tree city-states and the desert areas where people built their cities out of giant bug shells. This is… more than we used to travel.”

Isabela didn’t know what to say to that so just patted Merrill on the shoulder. Merrill perked up a bit at that.

They continued to make a great deal of progress on their list while only spending a portion of the credits they had. It did take a while longer with Merrill entrancing the store owners who wouldn’t immediately give them the items so Isabela could steal them, but so far they hadn’t been caught, and Isabela was happy to take some extra time if it meant they didn’t get caught.

Neither Anders nor Merrill loaded up on personal items beyond what was necessary, though Merrill did seem to have an appreciation for fine paintings and after deliberation talked the store owner into giving her a small one, a classic landscape of some vibrant world.

“I think it will liven up the kitchen,” Merrill said.

The problem came when they got to the pet store.

“No pets,” Isabela said as kindly as she could manage. “We can’t support a pet on this vessel.”

“Can’t we still just look?” Anders pleaded.

Anders was one thing. Merrill’s huge wide eyes filled with sorrow and the faintest hint of hope was another.

Isabela considered the growing weight of their goods but sighed. “Alright, fine,” she said, and both Anders and Merrill scampered inside like excited children.

There were a number of domesticated critters for sale and some not-so domesticated ones. Things with fur or scales or smooth, silky skin all in cages or aquariums or other kinds of habitats lined up around. There were helpful little placards stating the nutritional and habitual needs of that particular animal, and rows of various animal-related goods lined the back of the store.

She waved off the sullustan shopkeeper and let the two gawk with wide eyes.

“Any kind of pets your weakness?” she asked.

“I really like cats,” Anders said.

Interesting. They were a rare exotic pet from some truly backwater planet, but Isabela couldn’t remember which one.

“Ohhhhh?” Isabela asked with an brow ridge waggle.

Anders got very flustered. “Look I’m a cat person, but not _that_ kind of cat person!”

“No?” Merrill asked sadly. “Oh well.”

This confused Anders, and Isabela grinned. “Okay but seriously after this, we need to dump this back on the ship, and then it’s continuing onward.”

“Don’t we have just about everything the others weren’t getting?” Anders asked.

“We have, ah, a special appointment with a contact,” Isabela said.

“Ooooh can we tag along?” Merrill asked excitedly, bouncing on her feet.

“That’s the idea,” Isabela said, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “A learning experience for everyone.”

Eventually the two peeled themselves away from the animals, and they headed back to the Sirin’s Call II.

 _Her_ ship.

Having a ship gave her those warm, fuzzy feelings everyone talked so much about. As she approached the ship though, she heard a strange sound inside. Isabela halted instinctively, hand twitching to the gun strapped to her side.

“Dump the stuff in the cargo hold. I’ll go see what it is,” Isabela told the two, and then got out her blaster. One of the great things about this port was you were allowed to shoot intruders on your own spaceship, and Isabela hadn’t shot anyone in, like, three days.

The soundswere coming from the crews’ quarters, so at first she thought thief. She quietly snuck up and peeked around the corner. And then just walked right in.

“What the fuck?” she asked succinctly.

Fenris peeled off a welder’s mask. “Ah, you have returned. I made some modifications while the other two continued with the list.”

“Okay one, you need to ask permission before altering the ship,” Isabela said.

“You said we were allowed to make alterations to the crews’ quarters,” Fenris said. “This is the crews’ quarters.”

“And two, who is doing the stealing? They aren’t paying, right? Also three, when did you pick up welding skills?”

“It’s not that hard to learn,” Fenris said with a shrug.

“I’m pretty sure you can’t pick it up in a day,” Isabela protested. “It’s a skilled trade.”

Fenris shrugged again, and Isabela looked over at what he had done. The room was now subdivided into five rooms. Fenris had somehow acquired long, steel bars which he’d secured and welded into the floor and ceiling and then had welded sheet metal onto that. The rooms were tiny, fitting barely more than a single bed, but Fenris had also found materials from somewhere to have the beds raised to fit storage capacity underneath the bed. Cabinets and doors and more sheet metal were piled in the room, ready to be fixed into place.

“I’m not even sure you’ll need the training holo I stole,” Isabela said half-jokingly.

“We probably should have asked first,” Fenris said, ears lowered. “But we wanted personal space, so we stole what we needed first.”

“And you are doing this for free?” Isabela asked.

“I wasn’t going to,” Fenris said sourly, “but Dorian insisted if he helped steal the supplies then I shouldn’t charge him.” Fenris then grinned. “I wasn’t going to charge Aveline.”

“Okay but who’s doing the stealing that’s supposed to be going on? Can’t be Aveline.”

Fenris shrugged. “Dorian uses magic to steal. He floats things, or knocks them behind shelves and then shuffles it to where no one is looking. He is… not incompetent at it.”

Sounds like he’d been doing it before then. She wondered if that’s how he had been ‘supplementing’ his income back on Taris. Probably since he had not been getting enough credits to live off of.

“He had it handled, but _he_ could not figure out how to use the tools, nor could Aveline,” Fenris said. “We agreed this was the most efficient use of our time. We are all tired of having our space infringed upon by the other two.”

“Why’d you ruin our communal space?” Anders asked, having now strolled in.

“It is not ruined. If you and Merrill still insist on sharing everything,” Fenris said with great distaste in his voice, “then you are free to do so. But you will not be stealing my things anymore.”

“It’s not stealing,” Anders said exasperatedly. “It’s borrowing. And all the pillows look the same. How am I supposed to remember which one is ‘your’ pillow or not?”

“Aha,” Fenris said and stalked over to a corner before fishing something out and throwing it Anders.

Anders caught it and then blinked.

“You have your own pillow now,” Fenris said, and sure enough, Anders was clutching a round, blue pillow. “And it looks different. Now, there is no excuse. Stop stealing my things.”

“Ugh, fine. I’ll try to remember what stuff is ‘yours’ and what stuff is ‘mine’,” Anders said, complete with finger quotes around the words.

“Easier to remember if you get yourself some nice things,” Isabela said.

“I don’t need nice things,” Anders said.

The void masquerading as Isabela’s heart twinged at that, if only because he was so different from what she remembered. More haggard, more wary. She remembered a man who would drape himself in silks for the novelty of it.

He was still clutching the pillow though. Perhaps she could yet reintroduce him to debauchery.

Isabela glanced over at Fenris. “Can you finish up quickly? I was hoping I could introduce you to more criminal elements.”

Truth was every ship had a second, and so far, Fenris was feeling like the best bet. Granted ship dynamics were still a disaster right now, but no one she picked would get along with everyone.

Also it seemed the only thing Fenris _couldn’t_ learn how to do was fly a ship.

“I can put aside my work for now and come back to it later,” Fenris said. “It should not take too much longer.”

—

They actually ran into Dorian and Aveline on the way back—Dorian stoically saying little but presenting the amount of goods he’d stolen and Aveline looking disgusted with the entire business—so they stashed those on the ship first as well as picking up their laundry.

Merrill sidled up to Aveline. “I didn’t want you to feel excluded, so I got you something!”

And then Merrill presented Aveline with a large, floppy sunhat with a bright green, yellow, and purple floral print.

Aveline made a noise that sounded confused but intrigued as she delicately took the hat in her massive paws. She then gave Merrill a look and said something.

“She says she doesn’t need a hat,” Anders translated. “More or less.”

“Oh that’s okay. I just thought it’d be something easy to wear if you felt like it,” Merrill said.

Aveline did carefully stash the hat in her side pouch. Which was a shame. Isabela really wanted to see a wookiee wearing a floppy floral nightmare.

“Alright. If that’s everything, let’s go,” Isabela said.

They then set out to the meeting. It was a good walk from the ship, but her contact by necessity worked close to ship ports.

Martin was a zabrak specializing in data forgery, you see. Specifically, ship registrations. Not all places were as willing to overlook official registration as this port, and Isabela didn’t want to be locked on the outside of the Rim. And on the off chance they ever stole a different ship, it was good for her crew to know the overall process.

Martin whistled when he plugged the registration crystal into his computer. “You stole from the Sith?”

“Right out from underneath their fingers,” Isabela said, leaning casually against the wall with her arms crossed. Everyone else was in the room with her except Anders who was on guard outside the shop.

It took almost all their remaining credits, making them near broke once more, but some things in life couldn’t be stolen, and these were the sort of people who would rat you out to all the others if you tried to blackmail them. Getting blacklisted was the nightmare scenario, and Isabela was not that fine of a computers expert to learn the process herself.

Martin grinned and got to work.

Many places on the more legal side of the Rim cared about such things, like that you had your registration that you had bought your ship from someone, and that had been overseen by officials. Even Sith vessels were required to have been officially purchased, ironically enough, unless it was a Sith spaceship designed for warfare. Only those were legal game for piracy. And guess what kind of Sith ship they stole? Not one that was technically designated for warfare.

Isabela rolled her eyes. A smart Republic would get faster with the program, setting up letters of marque for enterprising pirates, encourage people to take on the Sith. But the Republic could barely pass laws period and had struggled to get its collective shit together for the Mandalorian Wars.

Which hadn’t even really been done by the official Republic government. That had been all Revan, before Revan decided conquering the galaxy was more fun than saving it.

Knowing how fast things moved, the law would probably come out after the war was over. Either that, or the Sith would conquer the Republic, and then it’d be a moot point. She supposed she should worry more about that, but that worry was already designated for ‘did I manage to scrape together enough fuel to keep the ship afloat’ and ‘is there any hope for this crew or should I just ditch them?’

Between the major constant life concerns, she just didn’t have any worry left for the big things. And why worry about things you couldn’t change in general? It just gave a person digestive issues and worry lines. Better to keep your eyes on things you can actually accomplish.

In any case, the good universe provided enterprising souls with data hackers when the Republic couldn’t be bothered. The registration was designed to be extremely difficult to hack and thus edit, but that never stopped experts. She’d never had a ship flagged as stolen when Martin had done his forgeries.

Isabela explained this and the general guideline of ‘we do not mess with data forgers’ to her crew as Martin finished up.

“Finished,” Martin said, slapping the crystal into the palm of her hand. “Gotta say, didn’t think you were one for carting around a bunch of new folk.”

Aveline grumbled something that was definitely not kind words.

“It’s a long story,” Isabela said. “But thanks for the crystal. We’ll be on our way.”

She exited the shop and turned to where Anders had been.

And then her hand went to her gun.

“I’m just saying, you look like you’ve had a really hard time lately,” Hawke was saying to Anders who had an enraptured expression on his face. “I can take you to a nice steak dinner. Maybe go to the spa? I’ve got a coupon you can just have if you want to go alone. I understand.”

“Get away from my crew member,” Isabela said, stepping forward.

Hawke glanced over at her, a look of hurt flashing across his face. “Wow you really don’t sound happy to see me.” He placed a hand on his chest and winced. “…was it something I did?”

“You _fucking-”_

“Ay!” Martin yelled from behind them. “No fighting in or near my shop. I don’t want any attention.”

 _“I_ wasn’t fighting,” Hawke said, and of course winning crowd sympathy. He was damn good at that.

Hawke was a tall, beefy human who was very unfortunately handsome. He had a rectangular face framed just so by dark hair. He had dark eyes and a nose that looked like it had broken before and would be broken again, but in an endearing, ruggishly charming way.

Once, Isabela had been suckered in by that very charm. Never again.

“And you have new crew,” Hawke said genially as ever. “Do I get to at least know their names? I’ve met Anders, who’s been a wonderful conversationalist. So who are you guys?”

“Don’t-” Isabela started, but she wasn’t fast enough.

“Oh I’m Merrill,” Merrill said cheerfully.

Anders glanced over at Isabela, but he still had that lost puppy look on his face. “What is your problem with him? Should I be worried? He’s almost as muscular as Aveline.”

Somehow Isabela got the sinking feeling that even if she told him yes, there was plenty to be worried about with Hawke, Anders wasn’t going to listen to her.

He’d have to learn the same way she did once.

“I actually _bought_ you something,” Fenris muttered under his breath, giving a sharp glance at Anders.

And this was why Fenris was now her second. He was immune to Hawke’s charms.

“Where’s Varric?” Isabela asked. Get his attention on her and not her crew.

“Oh, he’s finishing something up,” Hawke said. “Picking up the latest batch of romance novels. Flying through space is always so long and cold and _lonely_ you know. We ran into some extra credits lately and have been in a celebratory mood.”

“Who’d you stab in the back?” Isabela asked.

“See that is a hurtful assessment of my line of work,” Hawke said. “And I’m sorry you feel that way. But. You’re still fine, aren’t you? No harm, no foul.”

“Great. We are all leaving,” Isabela said, keeping eyes on Hawke and all but shoving her crew in front of her. And then she didn’t run back to her ship, but she did walk quickly, sometimes pushing through the people crowding the walkways, all milling in and out of shops.

“Who was that man?” Fenris asked, keeping pace with her.

Isabela glanced over her shoulder, but Hawke didn’t seem to be pursuing. She wanted to be hopeful, that if he was celebrating a current windfall, he’d leave her alone.

She wanted to be hopeful. She highly doubted anything good would come of this.

“Hawke is a bounty hunter,” Isabela said. “He works with a droid named Varric who looks lifelike, just like a bimm. They’ve caught me a few times. Collected on me once. Make no mistake, his friendliness is nothing more than a lure to get his targets to underestimate him. Do any of you have bounties?”

Aveline made a disgusted noise that frankly could have meant any number of things.

“I… do not know,” Fenris said, sounding worried and unsure. “How legal are these bounties? Must they come through ‘official’ channels?”

“They don’t have to be legal at all,” Isabela said. Right. If he was an escaped slave, there could easily be one on him. And, considering Dorian’s luck, there was probably one on him as well.

Hopefully that would be all the bounties, aside from hers.

“I definitely have some out on me,” Anders said cheerfully.

Fuck her life.

“Okay. Well. We are leaving immediately,” Isabela said. “I’m glad we saved that for last because guess what? It’s time to go.”

They managed to get back to the Siren’s Call II uninterrupted, which gave her hope. She quickly made her way to the helm, plugged the registration back into the main computer, and began to get ready.

“Get everything secured, people,” she called out. She’d wanted to stay longer, but that was always a bad idea with Hawke around.

She hailed the docking space traffic controller with her request to set out early.

And got back a negative.

 _“Fuck,”_ she said succinctly.

She punched in direct communications. “Hey, Isabela, captain of the Sirin’s Call II. I was curious on why my request to leave early was denied.”

“We got a tip your ship had illegal cargo in it,” the person replied. “Authorities are allowed to search your vessel if they have reasonable cause.”

For a split second, she panicked over all their stolen goods. But no, they wouldn’t check manually for receipts of every last item. They would be looking for drugs or other contraband. Which, for once, she didn’t have, but the official search would take a few hours.

It was merely delaying them from leaving immediately. Say, if someone had a few errands he wanted to catch up on before approaching a target.

Damn Hawke and damn Varric too.

“Of course,” she said cheerfully. “I can assure you’ll find nothing on board, but you are free to check. We’ll happily comply with the dockmaster’s wishes.”

She then signed off from that channel before flipping on board communications. “Alright everyone. We are going to have law officials on board. Do not act suspicious. So Merrill, no talking to them. No one is under any circumstance to leave the ship, and don’t open the doors until you get visual confirmation that they are the actual law officials and not Hawke.”

Merrill had already once excitedly told some people about the drugs they’d smuggled. She was the sweetest and melted the cold, hardened shell of Isabela’s heart, but she didn’t trust Merrill to not accidentally say something.

Would Aveline though? Aveline was one of those law-abiding people even though she currently flew with pirates.

She breathed out, calmly. She was just rattled by Hawke’s presence. Aveline hadn’t ratted them out yet, and if she did, she’d deal with Aveline then.

By shoving her out an airlock.

While she waited, she went ahead and began helping stow items, getting everything secure as well as ready to leave. Fenris had already moved his workshop tools and materials (and doors) into storage, all of them strapped down properly. Artificial gravity was truly a blessing, as well as inertia dampeners, but doing barrel rolls in space would still cause forces that would send things moving about. Everything had to be strapped down or bolted down or stored carefully in containers that themselves were either strapped or bolted down.

And then after that, she waited some more as the local law sure took their sweet time getting to their ship. She could feel worry eating away inside of her. Hawke had already thrown her to prison once. She’d escaped, mind you, and Hawke had failed to capture her other times. But it wasn’t just her now. Normally she wouldn’t worry so much over her crew, but then her crew was usually hardened criminals willing to stab her in the back, not people who foolishly stormed a Sith base just to rescue her out of some misplaced sense of loyalty.

This was exactly why she didn’t try to encourage loyalty in her crew. Ugh.

Eventually she got a hail, and Isabela checked the visuals. Law officials. She breathed out a sigh of relief and summoned her crew to the entrance—a good show of everyone on board and nobody being there who wasn’t supposed to be. Everything in order, Isabela opened the doors to let in the officials.

And then a moment later, Hawke and Varric walked in, with that tell-tale shimmer of a cloaking field having been turned off.

“Hey,” Varric greeted warmly, like he wasn’t about to stab her in the back. “Nice to see you again. Long time no see.”

“You-”

“Yeah I checked on your crew,” Hawke said, wincing. “Did you know a number of them have some bounties? Isabela. Consorting with criminals? And, of course, you as well.”

The names hadn’t been given to Hawke, but they would be on the docking manifest. Twelve armed guards were on his side, all law officials, who now had their hands on their guns.

Isabela thought for a second. And then she flung a stun grenade right into the cluster of the guards.

Chaos broke out. Anders threw up a barrier of some sort around them right as blaster fire rang out, but Aveline darted out of it, grabbing a man and using him as a shield as well as a means to hit other people with.

Normally that kind of sight would stir feelings in Isabela’s pants, but her dislike of Aveline was enough that it was a purely platonic joy of seeing a strong lady use a man as a bludgeoning weapon.

Fenris darted out after her before reaching _into_ a man and yanking out a large chunk of flesh, a sight that Isabela would never get used to. The man spasmed as he fell to his knees.

Hawke only managed to touch his weapon before Dorian reacted with reflexes that had to be Force-enhanced, throwing up a hand and Hawke, Varric, and a few guards near them were flung outward, out of the ship.

Blaster fire continued to sound, but Anders’ barrier held around them. Aveline got hit, but she just roared and bodily tossed someone else out while Merrill did _something,_ and two more of the guards simply bolted, screaming in a way that unnerved even Isabela.

At least her crew got the program quickly.

“Deal with them,” she ordered, and she sprinted back to the helm, ignoring a burn snake across her leg.

They had what they came for, and they had their official registration, and this would definitely show up as a black mark if anyone checked. She seethed as she began pressing buttons. Hawke just had to ruin everything for her, show up when she was only doing a minor amount of crime to shake things up.

Hawke was the reason she couldn’t have nice things.

The ship entrance began to close as the ship lifted up into the air. Isabela punched in the comm to the space flight traffic controller once more.

“Isabela, Captain of the Sirin’s Call II,” she said brightly. “I have decided I will leave right now, immediately. Either you can help me out with this, or we will open fire upon your station, upon which you will die. Is your life worth not opening the hangar bay? Think carefully. I will give ten seconds.”

After about four seconds, the hangar bay door began to open. At least one thing was going right for her.

She flipped on comms. “Everyone, hold onto something because we are leaving immediately.”

And then she floored it.

Turret fire barely missed the ship as Isabela throttled the controls, pushing through atmosphere and defying gravity once again. And just in case orbital security was notified, she activated the hyperdrive the moment she could, not relaxing a moment before.

She sighed, leaning back in her chair, and then made a note in the ship’s log of yet another planet she wouldn’t be able to return to. Ah, well. Millions of inhabited planets in the galaxy.

Thank whatever strange forces there were that she hadn’t landed with official registration. Having not been checked in officially, the paper trail would be weak. There was going to be some damage control, but this wasn’t the worst case scenario.

She left the helm temporarily to go check on her crew, make sure everyone was, in fact, on board and that nobody had been shot.

There were now scorch marks on her ship. That was fine. All could be cleaned and repaired. She heard the same sounds before that meant Fenris had simply returned to welding things in the crews’ quarters, which probably meant there wasn’t an emergency.

“Oh Isabela,” Merrill said, darting out of a side room. “Wasn’t that just so exciting?”

“Sure was kitten,” Isabela said fondly. “Anyone hurt?”

“Well, Aveline got hurt, but Anders has her in the med bay. And. Well.”

“What?”

“We got almost everyone off the ship,” Merrill said. “Except for one guard. So we have a hostage?”

Isabela took a deep breath, and let the frustration flow through her. “Where did you guys put the hostage?”

“He’s tied up in the cargo hold,” Merrill said. “We have Dorian watching him.”

Great. She was sure having a trigger-twitchy Mandalorian guarding someone wouldn’t be a problem in the slightest. Well, first things first, and that was checking up on Aveline.

And if Dorian did end up shooting the guy, well. That’d solve that problem at least.

Which reminded her.

“Speaking of Dorian, I have to say, I was surprised that you’ve been a main voice of keeping him on board,” Isabela said.

“Oh?” Merrill asked curiously. “Why is that?”

Isabela blinked. “Well. The whole bit where Mandalorians tried to genocide the cathar? And forced the cathar off your homeplanet? Am I remembering that correctly?”

“Ohhhhhh,” Merrill said. “Okay, yes, that could be an issue. If Dorian was a Mandalorian. But he’s not, so it’s not really an issue. The armor does creep me out, but I don’t think that’s a Mandalorian thing because I get uncomfortable with full body armor in general, so there’s no point in asking Dorian to change.”

“What?” Isabela asked.

Merrill tilted her head. “I thought you knew, but I suppose it would make sense you wouldn’t in hindsight. Of course not, Merrill! Most people don’t know the signs. There’s a small number of them, but there’s two dead giveaways. I’ve heard him talking to Fenris in that strange tongue of theirs, and it’s not Mando’a. And whenever he mutters to himself, it’s still not Mando’a, and speaking the language is a big deal for them. You can’t be a Mandalorian and not speak the language. But more telling than that? His armor is too clean.”

“Too… clean?” Isabela asked.

“He keeps it spotless,” Merrill said knowingly. “Any time there’s so much as a blaster scorch, the next day, it’s gone. That’s not Mandalorian at all. Mandalorians like their armor to have some battle damage. Not having any damage marks implies you weren’t in enough battles and haven’t slaughtered enough innocent people to be of note.”

Merrill breathed out steadily for a moment and then was back to cheer. “Anyway, you get people sometimes who pretend to be Mandalorian, simply because nobody asks Mandalorians to remove their armor. It’s a way a number of people hide if they don’t want to be found. I do wish Dorian chose any other disguise, but I can’t fault him for picking a good one. I don’t think he even thought it through a lot. A number don’t. They just see that obscuring helmet and go for it. At least if you have a head that works for it. I’m not sure what zabrak or twi’lek Mandalorians do about the helmet issue. I can’t imagine that’s comfortable, but wouldn’t it be weird to be in a group of Mandalorians and you are the only one not wearing a helmet?”

Isabela nodded as her brain digested this information. It hadn’t been an unfair assumption, she felt like. Even if he wasn’t really Mandalorian, she’d bet her boots he came from some kind of military background. “I imagine so.”

—

The smell of scorched fur was noticeable as she approached the medbay, but Aveline was sitting upright, perfectly fine despite having bleeding holes in that massive body of hers. Anders was healing her through his Force powers, a faint blue glow noticeable. Isabela could actually see the rends in flesh slowly knit together, leaving scars which became faint and then vanished.

Fascinating.

Aveline was even talking to Anders, only sometimes using the datapad next to her to type things out.

“Some of us wanted to, but after the first dozen or so defected, they really started cracking down hard on that,” Anders was saying.

Aveline roared something at him.

“I wanted to go off, use my medical knowledge, but that never ended up happening.” Anders paused for a second. “Considering how things went, that might have been for the best.”

Aveline made an agreeing noise.

“What are you two talking about?” Isabela asked, stepping inside the room.

“The Mandalorian War,” Anders said. “I noticed some old injuries that had never healed right, and Aveline was telling me where she got them from.”

“You served in the War?” Isabela asked Aveline, non-existent eyebrows raised.

Aveline made a sound that Isabela had learned was ‘yes’ by now.

She’d learned ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘fuck you’. Hopefully more would follow.

Isabela slid into a seat. “Is that where you got so familiar with fighter pilots?”

Aveline nodded and then said something to Anders.

“I caught about half of that, but yeah. Sith tech is similar to the stuff Revan used to use,” Anders said.

“Okay, I have to ask,” Isabela said, leaning forward. “Did you meet him? Revan? Was he as tall as all the stories say he was?”

“Well first of all, Revan was a ‘they’, not a he,” Anders said. “And secondly they were shorter than me by a good foot.”

Aveline rumbled something.

“And Aveline would like to point out yes, Revan really did wear a mask all the time. They claimed masks would catch on eventually.”

Isabela whistled. “You both actually knew Revan? Really? You aren’t just pulling my lekku?”

“According to Aveline, she was one of the officers under Revan,” Anders said, and Aveline nodded at that. “She’d thought they were honorable enough at the time. As for me, we actually were in the same batch of small Jedi children,” Anders said, not sounding nearly as bitter as when most people talked about Revan considering the whole switch from saving the Republic and a number of alien species from genocide at the hands of the Mandalorians, to, again, mysteriously vanishing for several months before showing up and trying to conquer the galaxy.

Revan had been killed by the Jedi, the only show of Republic efficiency, but their partner Malak was still at large and running things.

“They actually would smuggle in movies and games from the outside world somehow,” Anders continued.” They got caught exactly once and somehow was able to convince the teacher that it was for ‘diplomatic training and cultural sensitivity skills’.”

“So always a bit of a rapscallion? Doesn’t that normally portend Jedi going bad?”

Aveline rumbled something to Anders.

“Yeah that was definitely more of a red flag, the electricity thing,” Anders said. “’Good Jedi’ don’t use Force lightning, but Revan knew how to use it from the start. Even taught it to me. It’s the one rule I bend about what powers I can dabble in.”

“Now Anders, I don’t need to hear all about your past sex partners,” Isabela said teasingly.

Anders said nothing.

Isabela paused. “Wait. That was a joke. _Did_ you and Revan make passionate Jedi love?”

“…and Malak,” Anders said. “In my defense, they weren’t evil Sith lords at the time. That all happened later.”

Aveline said something that sounded extremely judgmental, but ‘extremely judgmental’ was the default for Aveline anyway.

“Well,” Isabela said. “I learn new things about you every day. So how was it? I gotta know now. Was the infamous Revan good at sex?”

Anders paused in his healing ministrations for a solid fifteen seconds. “Definitely in my top five.”

His voice was mostly light, but at the same time, there was something strained about his expression. Which might have to do with Revan having turned evil, tried to conquer the galaxy, and then dying.

In hindsight, it was probably a touchy subject.

Isabela decided to let it lie there.

—

Isabela decided she didn’t want to deal with her panicked hostage reporting them or anything, but there was a difference between killing someone in a fight and killing someone while they were defenseless. When they got out of hyperspace, Isabela took a pit stop at an orbital space station. She tranqed the hostage first because she didn’t want to have to deal with all that yelling, and then looted his body for good measure.

300 credits. Not bad. Nor were his weapons. And armor could be sold.

She left the man stripped to his underclothes in a communal showers area and then wiped her hands of such nonsense.

And then it came time to dealing more with the crew.

Fenris was given the teaching holo on ship repair, which had the option of audio and visual as opposed to text-based. Fenris promised he would start on it immediately after he finished installing the doors to the new five rooms of the crew quarters, everything else having already been installed, bolted down, and welded down.

Fenris worked fast. And learned freakishly fast. Well that was a useful person to have on board she told herself. She reminded herself that not everyone needed the ability to fly a ship. It was fine. This was fine.

So maybe she was still beating her head against a wall when she woke up first thing. So what! Lots of people do that.

Merrill was given the one on ship computers as Merrill already had a lot of knowledge of different computer operating systems.

“You never know what kind of technology you’ll end up using when wandering through the galaxy,” Merrill said in her lilting voice. “I’ve worked with a number of systems, and I know the tools needed to transfer data between them. We had to do that a lot, wandering around, in order to make copies of what data we had been able to save.”

Granted data transferring wasn’t ‘spaceship software’ but you know what, it involved computers. Isabela was trying to work with the molds she’d been given.

Aveline was given the holo on navigations, because being able to fly a spaceship meant nothing if you didn’t know where you were going or what routes to skirt around. And more important, it also taught people how to read the various shorthands and symbols and language of galactic navigations.

Everyone would need a primer on that. They didn’t need to be experts, but they did need to know how to read a star map and not run into asteroid belts.

Anders didn’t need something else on top of his normal ship duties because he was the medic. That was good enough as is.

She’d honestly planned on waiting for Dorian. Step one for him was ‘learn Basic’, or so she would assume. Instead, Dorian had apparently decided they were living like ‘uncivilized barbarians’ according to Fenris, and had somehow managed to organize the entire ship’s contents and program a rudimentary system based around pictures on a storage and withdrawal program to keep accurate count of stocks.

And she found this out when Dorian was seemingly passively aggressively explaining the system to Anders through pantomimes who had, apparently, not been using the new system.

Maybe Fenris was right that Dorian was, in fact, a sarcastic shit.

She was curious why anyone who wasn’t a Mandalorian would impersonate one considering all the bad blood the Mandalorians currently had with the rest of the Republic at large. And, more interestingly, why Fenris, who did not care for Dorian at all, hadn’t told her about Dorian’s deception.

After all, if they were from the same culture, he’d probably know. So what were they hiding?

Most captains would probably be frustrated with this. But she refused to see it as a bad thing. Obviously Fenris and Dorian didn’t fully trust her, which was good, and how it should be on a pirate ship. Aveline didn’t trust Isabela either.

Now if she could only convince Merrill and Anders of this as well, and she’d be set.

—

This was not an end to the drama. The drama only intensified from there on out, mostly focused on Merrill, Anders, and Fenris as those were the three who could be understood which more easily lent itself to bickering. Aveline would grumble from time-to-time, but she couldn’t have a proper argument if no one understood her language, and Dorian mostly just gestured at things dramatically.

Did this mean she started favoring those two a bit more lately?

Maybe. Just maybe.

“I’m just saying, maybe you could benefit from some actual training on how to use the Force,” Anders said. “And, perhaps, when to not use the Force.”

Merrill gave him a side glance. “From the Jedi? The people who didn’t step in to save my people because that would involve violence? Who would then strip us of the Force traditions we have remaining? Oh, right though, they don’t take anyone who isn’t a small child. Much harder to erase their culture and beliefs otherwise.”

“You manipulate just about every person you come into contact with! I don’t think that’s a great tradition worth keeping!” Anders said.

“At least I try to help instead of sequestering myself away and passively allowing war crimes to happen,” Merrill retorted.

The argument devolved from there, and for a moment, Isabela believed that was the end of that.

And then the next morning, she walked into the den and saw Merrill and Anders snuggling on the couch with some holodrama playing.

“Anders, are you worried I’m using snuggles to mind control you?” Merrill asked.

“I’m a highly trained ex-Jedi,” Anders had sleepily said. “It’ll take more than a few snuggles to get into my brain.”

Merrill had mrrped happily at that and resumed snuggling Anders.

Isabela’s brain once again offered several things to do with both Merrill and Anders, preferably at the same time. Instead she gritted her teeth and sat down next to them to watch whatever it was they had picked up.

Which, as it turned out, hadn’t been them but Aveline who had apparently ‘lawfully purchased’ an entire series of awful soap opera holos.

She was, of course, a huge fan of them, and liked to have them playing between shifts and lessons.

Isabela eyed the airlock contemplatively.

On a different occasion, when trying to do some ship repair, Fenris said had in a moment of diplomacy asked Anders to, “Just lift the hatch with your magic.”

An olive branch, Isabela thought, as Fenris normally shied away from the Force.

Fenris’ body language was hesitant and uncomfortable, but clearly, he was _trying,_ and Isabela was proud of him.

“My ‘magic’?” Anders asked, highly offended. “Yeah it’s only superstitious, primitive backwater planets that still believe in ‘magic’.”

“It’s called ‘the Force’, Fenris,” Merrill said in a polite tone and siding with Anders for once. “Magic isn’t a thing that exists.”

Fenris stared at Anders for fifteen seconds before saying, “So are you going to lift it with your _magic_ or not?”

And that had started an argument nasty enough that Isabela had to step in and defuse.

The Force was a huge source of debate and conflict. As was the concept of personal property and any kind of private space, despite Fenris’ hard work (and thievery) into making the tiny separate rooms for them.

For example, Anders once gave Merrill Fenris’ mug on accident. Fenris had been infuriated. Anders didn’t see the point.

And then, Anders’ shirts ‘mysteriously’ all went missing a few days later. This almost certainly didn’t have the intended results, as Anders just walked around shirtless for a while. Isabela found herself really not minding in the slightest, and she wasn’t the only one.

Fenris seemed weirdly flustered, and the shirts mysteriously reappeared.

“I made separate rooms,” Fenris said furiously at a different point. “Everyone has their own bed, so there’s no reason I should catch you and Anders cuddling in my bed.”

Isabela wanted to be mad here, but the way Fenris said ‘cuddling’ as if it was one of the vilest acts known to sentient kind…

“I forgot which room was mine,” Merril said innocently, and that had started an argument, and Isabela had to step in with her captain authority and solve things.

To be fair, Isabela hadn’t paid that much attention to that argument because her mind kept replaying the image of Anders and Merrill snuggling together. Isabela wouldn’t say it was making her confused, because Isabela knew what she liked. She just hadn’t thought that Anders and Merrill would just fall into not-bed together.

Because they weren’t having sex. They just liked to cuddle as far as Isabela could tell. It was a bit weird, but different cultures had different societal norms on how much physical contact was allowed between friends or even acquaintances.

Either that, or both of them were so touch-starved they overlooked their differences in Force opinions for physical comfort.

Her brain offered other ways of providing physical comfort, and she reminded herself of her rule of ‘do not sleep with the crew, it never ends well.’

In order to cut down on the amount of bickering, she tried throwing holodramas at them. Instead they argued over the holodramas.

Even Dorian seemed to be bickering as he would hiss in that strange language to Fenris while gesturing at the screen. And then would hiss more as Fenris ignored him to argue with Anders instead, and that would escalate.

At least until Aveline roared, “Shut up!”

Which was a phrase everyone had learned in Shryiiwook. Aveline apparently liked her holodramas—the dramatic, soap opera kinds—and she got very vocal when people interrupted the show.

—

It had to happen sooner or later. Isabela was only one person, and she couldn’t be at the helm all the time.

In a proper, functioning crew, there was at least two pilots to have a rotating system. In a proper, functioning crew, the crew didn’t have to be handheld and walked through every step of the process.

That wasn’t the crew she had.

Isablea was woken up by the sounds of proximity alarms and immediately rolled out of bed and was out the door. She’d been having the ship stall in empty space when she slept, out of the way of all star routes. Which meant it wasn’t some passerby.

It was someone looking to prey on her ship. Other pirates.

 _Fuck_ other pirates.

The ship shook violently, and Isabela braced herself against the wall. Someone was firing on her ship. It infuriated her. She opened her mouth to call out, rouse everyone to arms, but she was not quite fast enough. The ship shook again, violently, and something heavy fell with a sickening crack against her head.

She crumpled to the floor, vision spinning. She tried to crawl, get to the quarters, but her limbs weren’t working right.

And then her vision faded entirely.

—

She hadn’t expected to wake up. And even if she did, she expected to wake up in handcuffs, not in the medbay.

Her head didn’t hurt though. She reached out to feel around her head, before she heard an, “Ah! No.”

“Anders,” she said, opening her eyes slowly. She blinked a few times in harsh light before her eyes adjusted.

“You have, or had, a concussion,” Anders said. “Don’t go poking around your head for a while. I was able to heal you, mostly, but that metal bar fell right on your head. And on your lekku. I’m worried about potential brain damage.”

“My name is Isabela, this is my ship, and the war between the Jedi and Sith is still happening despite Revan’s death,” she said. “Want me to count?” And then she paused for a second. “Wait. The ship.”

She tried to push herself into a sitting position unsuccessfully as her arms were refusing to cooperate.

“There will be no need for that,” Anders said proudly. “I will have you know, _captain,_ that the ship is still about. Aveline was able to pilot the ship in your absence, and Dorian was able to use the turrets to destroy the other ship. We still have no idea who they were, but, well, they’re dead now, so who cares. Fenris is already doing repairs, and Aveline hid us in an asteroid field. There was someone who came skirting by, but Merrill not only didn’t tell them about the drugs in the cargo hold, but was able to convince them to come over and give us some supplies to help us with said repairs. Which for once—don’t tell her this—for once I’m happy she’s so good at her mindbending powers because I’m pretty sure those people were hardened criminals.”

Anders paused for a second. “Unlike us. Anyway, then we mostly stayed put. We figured we would be safe here until you recovered.”

“Everything’s really alright?” she asked.

“Mostly we’ve all been worried about you,” Anders said. His voice was light, but his eyes betrayed worry. “You’ve been out for a couple of days despite my best attempts. Again, I think I was able to make sure you didn’t suffer any permanent brain damage, but your reactions might be a bit slow for a few weeks.”

Anders’ expression then turned exasperated. “And I’m pretty sure Fenris and Dorian think I’m purposefully not healing you to ‘keep you under my thrall’ or something like that. I’d say I’d appreciate it if you could convince them you are alright, but honestly I don’t think mere logic will work on those two.”

She could blame the head injury on tearing up, right?

She was so proud. They were a lousy crew, but they were her crew, and they were able to actually be self-sufficient while she was down for the count. They’d done it. They’d learned how to be pirate-smugglers at long last.

They were finally functional criminals and could pull their own weight with the crimes.

“Also we have no idea who to sell the drugs to.”

Well. They mostly had it down.


End file.
